Synthetic drug raids aid organised crime: lobby group

The Queensland police officer responsible for Tuesday's widespread raids on shops selling synthetic drugs has laughed off claims the action will push the drugs onto the street.

The lobby group representing adult shops, the Eros Association, warned the raids on 19 herbal and adult shops would simply shift the synthetic drugs, which it refers to as social tonics, from stores to dealers on the street.

"It's (those types of drugs) ending up more and more in the hands of criminal gangs and it will because shops don't want to be raided by police," he said.

"Even if they are confident they are doing the right thing, if they get constant raids by police eventually they just give up.

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"The black market knows how to deal with that."

Mr Wallis pointed to a January Crime and Corruption Commission report predicting organised crime involvement in the synthetic new psychoactive substances (NPS) market was likely to increase along with demand.

It found organised crime groups had become more involved in "importing and distributing" the drugs but didn't mention directly selling to individuals.

The report also mentioned an increase in people with no criminal history or connection with illicit drugs entering the trade.

Mr Wallis, who also advocates the legalisation of cannabis to cut back on crime, said criminal gangs would take advantage of any chance to sell synthetic drugs because they were cheaper.

"And because there's significant operations to try and stop certain illegal drugs on the market," he said.

"If there's any way that a criminal gang can get any other kind of drug and still sell that onto the market and still make profit, of course they're going to do it," he said.

But Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Marsh from the Drug and Serious Crime Group said the group was "fighting a losing battle".

"When you hear them make that sort of comment they'd prefer their members to get the illegal money than other organised crime gangs to make illegal money," he said.

"They'd prefer their members to be criminals. It's a nonsensical argument.

"Some of their members are quite literally making tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, selling dangerous drugs.

"In anyone else's definition that's a drug trafficker."

Senior Sergeant Marsh said as far as he was concerned, syndicated chains of stores selling the illegal drugs constituted organised crime.

But he said police weren't planning to lay charges under the VLAD Act.

Senior Sergeant Marsh said after tests on previously seized samples, he was confident the seized drugs would prove to be either listed dangerous drugs or products designed to mimic the chemical or pharmacological structure of dangerous drugs.